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Comment by crazygringo

3 years ago

Given the difficulty people talk about recovering an account to which they've lost the password or recovery methods, it seems like Google ought to periodically ask you to verify that your recovery e-mail and phone number and 2FA device are still correct. It seems like that would basically solve the problem in most cases.

So I kind of find it strange that I use Google services extensively, and yet I can't recall ever receiving a reminder of that kind. But maybe other people are?

Since Google seems to anecdotally make it impossible to recover an account if you don't have access to your old phone number or another logged-in device, it seems like it should be a bit more proactive in ensuring things like a phone number are kept up-to-date?

Obviously that won't help when people don't touch an account for years, but it would help in cases like this story, where people actively use an account on a device for years but without ever having to regularly put in a password.

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crazygringo

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ilyt  3 years ago

> it seems like Google ought to periodically ask you to verify that your recovery e-mail and phone number and 2FA device are still correct. It seems like that would basically solve the problem in most cases.

I get prompt to verify my recovery email ~once a year. You guys don't ?

  • crazygringo  3 years ago

    I don't but Google might be able to figure out I'm active enough (e.g. it can tell I pick up on Google Voice calls at my recovery number, and am always logged in with lots of devices) that it doesn't bother.

    So stories like this make me assume that Google isn't sending them out enough. But maybe it does? Then is there a question of people's responsibility if they ignore them?

new299  3 years ago

I have a google account. I know the password. I have access to the recovery email.

I however don't have access to the associated phone number. Google won't let me log in...

  • alvarezbjm-hn  3 years ago

    "I have a google account. I know the password. I have access to the recovery email"

    This also applies to microsoft. Except Microsoft also asks for PII (name, dob, country, gender) But they still want the old phone number

julianz  3 years ago

That happens to me periodically, I am prompted to check the 2FA settings and confirm the phone number.

darkhelmet  3 years ago

The cynic in me suspects that they probably tried this and discovered that they will lose a percentage of logged-in accounts and how much that costs their revenues/bottom-lines.

Seriously though, even apple does this - where they periodically ask you for your pin/password on phones with fast biometric logins every 1-2 weeks as a memory refresher.

For google: I think they should do a memory refresher too. Once you've confirmed that you remember it, they can stop bugging you for some time. And if a logged-in user can't remember it, then don't log the user out, give them time to save important things.

readyplayernull  3 years ago

I have several accounts and Google will only show remiders for those I barely log in. It even used to send reminder emails but that seemed to stop after I marked them as spam.